Future of coal
We are the world’s largest exporter of thermal coal, meeting approximately 1.5% of global demand. Coal is an abundant, reliable and relatively low-cost energy source, and we believe it has a critical role to play in ensuring energy security and economic growth over the coming decades. It is a vital part of the global energy mix, representing around a quarter of overall demand, and around 60% of proven reserves.
It is clear that the current and predicted levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from burning fossil fuels are unsustainable. Industry and governments must commit to finding ways of capturing and treating or storing carbon emissions. With the right government policies, stakeholder collaboration, and research and development, we believe that safe, cost-competitive solutions can be found and implemented on a broad scale.
We recognise our obligation to support the development of technologies to reduce the overall emissions from the coal we produce. Emissions reductions can be achieved by:
- improving combustion processes to obtain more useful energy from a given quantity of fuel (thermal efficiency)
- using carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) technologies that reduce the GHG emissions of coal-fired power generation
CCS technology involves capturing the CO2 emitted from coal-fired power plants and storing it in a way that prevents it from reaching the atmosphere. While the research and development costs associated with CCS technologies are high, we believe these will be reduced significantly over time as experience is gained in deploying CCS technology commercially and economies of scale are realised. Despite the additional medium- to long-term cost increases created by applying CCS solutions to coal-fired power stations, we believe coal will still be one of the most competitively priced sources of energy.
Significant government and industry support and funding is required to realise the G8 countries’ target of 20 CCS plants in operation by 2020. We are contributing to this goal by investing nearly $200 million in low-emission technologies, through industry initiatives and independent investment.
